Re: Trading Limits

Mark, Thanks indeed, as my Englishman rare book finding agent named Paul
(pronounced "Pole") Merchant up the street says, for all the help with the
naval history. It gets to swirling around from time to time. Nelson,
Jack's great idol, smote the hated Spanish and French at Trafalgar in the
18th century long after the Armada had been wrecked at the mouth of the
Thames, an event that Shakespeare must have been aware of. I am working
through Spanish history by reading a book by the art critic Robert Hughes
about Barcelona, and did not realize the unique maritime power of that City.
At one time, it dominated the Mediterranean in its time of glory which was
back in the Middle Ages, I want to say in the 7 or 8 hundreds. . They have
an outstanding Maritime Museum containing examples of those wierd sounding
boats like xebecs and lateens and, the prize I want to see is the big ship
that some Austrian hero sailed at the famous battle of Lepanto, which battle
is referred to by Cervantes in Don Quixote as the time when Christianity
dealt the hated Turks a heavy blow. Cervantes was wounded in the battle and
languished in a Turkish prison in north Africa, some of which comes out in
his immortal tale. I will not be near Trafalgar because we are going to go
from Madrid to Granada to Barcelona in a triangle but will at some point be
able to gaze out across the Mediterranean in the direction of some of those
little islands that O'Brien mentions, I think one of them is called Minorca
and there is a Belarazic or something like that. And we will see some of
the Pyrennes (sp?) where Stephen had his family castle and through which he
dragged Jack in that bear costume which always amuses me so much to recall.

If you could obtain from Ted Murphy and send me the current Risk Management
Policy I would be forever grateful. I like to go back to the text from time
to time. --cgy

To: Christian Yoder/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc:
Subject: Re: Trading Limits

Christian,

I'm afraid you may have your centuries confused relative to Nelson and the
Armada. The "Spanish Armada" of fame was a fleet dispatched by Philip II of
Spain to invade England in the late 16th century - it was during Elizabeth
I's reign and I have some vague recollection that Mary, Queen of Scots had
something to do with encouraging Philip before she was executed. The Armada
was defeated in a series of battles (and by some very bad weather) around the
English Channel. Nelson didn't sail til the 18th century. Of course, the
English and the Spanish had been going at it off and on the entire time and
you'd have to say "on" in the early 1800's when Nelson "broke the enemy
line" at the battle of Trafalgar. I believe that was during a time when the
Spanish were allies of Napoleon - whether by choice or under duress I
couldn't say - and the enemy fleet was a combined French/Spanish fleet. The
battle is named after Cape Trafalgar in southern Spain. I'm pretty sure it's
somewhere between Cadiz and Gibraltar so your gut feeling is right - I don't
see it on the map either & wonder if it has a different name in Spanish.
Will you be going to that part of Spain[Andalusia?]? The English victory has
in common with the Armada battle of a bit over 200 years earlier that it
ended any hopes held by the enemy of imminent invasion of Britain.

As far as the policy question goes, you are remembering what I always
referred to as the "trading policy" but is officially referred to as the
"Risk Management Policy." It most definitely covers Portland trading
operations. I haven't been as involved in that policy for the last couple of
years as I was back when MEH was chief control officer. Ted Murphy now has
responsibility for maintaining and enforcing the policy. I don't have a
current version but will ask Ted for one.

Mark

Christian Yoder

05/22/99 11:12 AM
To: Mark - ECT Legal Taylor/HOU/ECT@ECT
cc: Elizabeth Sager/HOU/ECT@ECT
Subject: Trading Limits

Mark,
I haven't had a chance to plunge into the book you lent me at the conference
because I am flailing around wildly in as much as I can about certain
Spanish topics before early July, including such things as, of course,
Cervantes, a man whose mind I have come to love almost as much as
Shakespeare's, the Catalans, the Spanish Civil War, the War of Spanish
Succession, the Spanish Inquisition and of course the Spanish Aramada. I
have never read a definitive account of that great moment in English naval
history. Did Nelson fight in the Armada battle at Trafalgar? Is that the
battle Jack Aubrey is always talking about? Where the hell is Trafalgar?
I have the idea it is down there by Gibraltar but can't find it on the map.
On the other hand, I have a vague fantasy of these little row boats coming
out at the mouth of the Thames to battle the mighty Armada. When one
considers what the panic must have been like in the Spanish fleet when they
realized that in spite of their size and assumed invincibility they were
actually vulnerable to that old maritime risk of sinking, one is
involuntarily caused to cast one's badly jaundiced commercial-legal mind
upon recent events of an analagous nature on board our own beloved ship,
sailing as it has been in the northern commercial straits. Has our
mighty Armada sailed out onto the seas of deregulation, only to meet the
...... perhaps I shall cease articulating this line of thought and dwell
upon the ingenuity of the Engish.

Anyway, I have come to a point here in Portland where I need to go back
into the policy context of our trading business. I recall in Houston that
we had these trading policies that you worked on and that they set limits and
articulated responsibilities. Do you still have close contact with those
policies and if so, is there a discrete document that pertains to the
Portland desk and if so would you be so kind as to send me a hard copy of
it? I want to ground myself again in the fundamentals so my daily battles
can be a little more fun. --cgy